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Romantasy sales jumped from $454 million in 2023 to $610 million in 2024. That is not a spike. That is a genre that has taken over an entire market.
Fourth Wing. ACOTAR. From Blood and Ash. These are not just popular books. They are cultural events. Readers do not just finish them. They reread them, build communities around them, and wait years for sequels.
And now a lot of writers want in.
The problem is that most writers who try how to write romantasy get the same thing wrong. They write a fantasy novel. Then they add a love interest. Then they wonder why the book feels like two separate stories crammed into one.
That is because it is.
Real romantasy works differently. The romance and the fantasy are not two threads running side by side. They are one thread. Pull out the romance and the fantasy falls apart. Pull out the fantasy and the romance has nothing to stand on.
When that works, readers cannot put the book down. This guide is about making it work.
The One Test That Tells You If You Are Writing Romantasy
Before you write a single chapter, you need to be able to answer this question.
If your two main characters never fell in love, would the fantasy plot still function?
If the answer is yes, you are writing fantasy with a romance subplot. That is a valid choice. But it is not romantasy.
In Fourth Wing, Violet and Xaden's relationship is not decoration on the war college story. It is the war college story. Every secret, every political move, every betrayal runs directly through the two of them. Remove the romance and the whole plot collapses.
In ACOTAR, Feyre and Tamlin's relationship is what gets her into Prythian in the first place. Then Feyre and Rhysand's relationship is what dismantles Amarantha's power. The romance is not alongside the plot. The romance is the plot.
That is the standard. The romance has to be load bearing. It has to drive decisions, create conflict, and shape the outcome of the fantasy story.
If your romance could be removed and your fantasy story would still mostly work, keep building until it cannot.
The World Is Not a Backdrop. It Is an Obstacle.
This is the single biggest difference between romantasy that works and romantasy that does not.
In a regular romance novel, the setting is where the love story happens. In romantasy, the setting is what makes the love story hard.
Your world needs to be actively working against the relationship at all times. Not just at the start. All the way through.
Think about what Yarros built in Fourth Wing. Riders cannot show favoritism. Xaden's political position puts Violet in danger. The war college is designed to kill students. The rebellion history between their families runs directly through their relationship. The world never gives them a moment of peace.
Think about what Maas built in ACOTAR. The treaty between humans and faeries. The power hierarchy of the courts. The terms of the curse. Every layer of that world is a reason these two people should not be together. Every time the romance gets close to something real, the world pushes back.
When you are building your world, think about these specifically:
What law, rule, or political structure keeps these two people from being together openly?
What history exists between their families, factions, or peoples that makes trust almost impossible?
What does the magic system do that makes the relationship more dangerous?
What does each character stand to lose if their connection becomes known?
If your world is not answering at least two of these questions, it is not doing enough work.
Building Chemistry That Readers Feel Before the Characters Admit It
Chemistry in romantasy is not about attraction. Attraction is the easy part. Chemistry is about two people who challenge each other in ways nobody else does.
They expose vulnerabilities the other person keeps hidden. They trigger fears the other person has been running from. They see through the version each character presents to the world and respond to what is underneath.
That is what readers respond to. Not the way a character looks. The way they make the other person feel seen in a way that is uncomfortable and irresistible at the same time.
Matched Intensity
Both characters need to operate at the same emotional level. One cannot be vastly more invested than the other for too long. Readers track this imbalance and when it goes on too long it starts to feel sad rather than tense.
Complementary Wounds
The most compelling romantasy couples are not just compatible. They are specifically shaped to fit each other's damage. Rhysand is built for exactly the kind of healing Feyre needs after the Spring Court. Xaden's secrets are shaped by exactly the same history that shaped Violet's family. This does not happen by accident. It requires knowing what broke each character before the story started.
Awareness Before Admission
The reader should know the characters are falling for each other before either of them admits it. That gap between what the reader can see and what the characters will acknowledge is where the tension lives. The reader is waiting for the admission. Every chapter that does not give it to them makes them more desperate.
Banter With an Edge
The best romantasy dialogue is not just witty. It is banter that cuts. Each exchange reveals something one character does not want the other to know. The humor is armor. The sharpness is protection. Readers feel both things at once.
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The Morally Gray Love Interest: How to Make Them Compelling Without Losing Readers
This is the most popular character type in romantasy and the hardest to write well.
Morally gray means the love interest has done things that cannot be excused. Made choices that hurt people. Operated by a code that the protagonist and possibly the reader does not share. They are not a villain who reforms. They are a person who made real decisions with real consequences and believes, on some level, that they were justified.
The reason this works in romantasy is that the fantasy setting provides context that contemporary fiction cannot. War. Survival. Political necessity. When the world itself is brutal, brutal choices have a different weight.
They Have a Code
It might not be a code the reader agrees with. But it is consistent. They do not hurt people randomly. They operate by rules, even if those rules are dark. Readers can follow a character who has principles even when those principles are uncomfortable. They cannot follow a character who seems to cause harm arbitrarily.
The Harm Has a Reason the Reader Can Understand
Not excuse. Understand. There is a difference. Xaden's actions in Fourth Wing make sense given his history even when they are wrong. Rhysand's actions in the early ACOTAR books make sense once you understand what he was protecting. Readers stay with morally gray characters when the reasoning is traceable even if it is not forgivable.
They Are Capable of Genuine Care
Not just possessiveness. Not just protection of what is theirs. Actual care for the protagonist as a person. At some point, the love interest has to show that they see the protagonist clearly and choose to value them anyway. This is the thing that makes readers root for the relationship despite everything.
They Face Real Consequences
Morally gray characters who never pay for their choices stop being morally gray and start being power fantasies. The weight of their past needs to show up somewhere in the story. It does not have to be a complete reckoning but there has to be cost.
Magic That Causes Problems, Not Solutions
This is where a lot of romantasy first drafts go wrong.
Magic is a tool. Most writers use it to solve problems. In romantasy, magic should mostly create them.
Every time magic is used in a romantasy, it should make something harder. For the character using it. For the relationship. For the wider plot.
It Reveals What the Character Wanted to Hide
A character uses magic in a moment of desperation and reveals an ability they were hiding from the love interest. Now a secret is out and the trust dynamic shifts overnight.
It Creates a Moral Conflict Between the Two Leads
A character uses magic to accomplish their goal and in doing so violates a line the love interest will not cross. The goal is achieved. The relationship takes damage. Now there is a new obstacle.
It Draws Danger to Them
Using magic makes them visible. To an enemy. To a governing power. To someone who has been watching. The couple has to move, separate, or make choices they were not ready to make because using magic made them a target.
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Heat Levels: What Romantasy Actually Needs
This is the question nobody answers clearly so writers either avoid it entirely or assume they need to write explicit scenes when they do not.
Romantasy does not require explicit scenes. But it does require heat. Those are not the same thing.
Heat is the tension between two characters that makes every scene they share feel charged. It lives in the almost moments. The near touches. The held eye contact. The moment one character notices something about the other and has to actively stop themselves from acting on it. You can write an entire romantasy with no explicit scenes and still have readers gripped if the heat is built correctly.
What romantasy does require is that the physical and emotional tension be present and building throughout the book. Readers of this genre signed up for yearning. They are there for the wanting.
Low Heat (Closed Door)
The tension is entirely emotional and physical tension is implied rather than shown. This works in romantasy if the emotional stakes are extremely high and the slow burn is exceptionally well built. Harder to execute but possible.
Medium Heat (Open Door, Fade to Black)
Scenes go far enough that the reader knows exactly what is happening but do not linger on explicit detail. This is probably the most common heat level in commercially successful romantasy. It satisfies readers who want heat without alienating readers who do not want graphic content.
High Heat (Explicit)
Full explicit scenes. ACOTAR from book two onwards. A Court of Silver Flames. This is what a significant portion of romantasy readers are specifically looking for. If you are going to write at this heat level, write it well. Do not fade out right before the scene becomes explicit if you have been building to it for 200 pages.
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The HEA Question: What Romantasy Readers Expect From Endings
Romance readers have strict rules about endings. The genre requires either a Happily Ever After (HEA) or a Happy For Now (HFN). No tragic endings. No ambiguous endings that leave the couple's future uncertain.
Romantasy readers have similar expectations but the fantasy plot complicates things.
Standalone Romantasy
The romantic arc needs to be resolved by the end. HEA or HFN. The fantasy plot also needs a satisfying conclusion even if not everything is wrapped up. Both arcs need to feel complete.
First Book in a Series
You do not need to resolve the entire romance in book one. But the romantic arc for that book needs a satisfying endpoint. Not the final destination. A meaningful stop on the journey. Readers need to feel that something real was gained in the relationship by the end of the book even if a lot is still unresolved.
What you cannot do in book one of a romantasy series is end on a pure cliffhanger that leaves the relationship in a completely unresolved state. Readers of this genre will feel cheated. The fantasy plot can absolutely end on a cliffhanger. The romance needs to earn its ending even if it is not the final one.
Pacing: How to Balance Romance and Plot
How much of each chapter should be romance and how much should be plot?
There is no fixed ratio. But there is a pattern that works.
The romance and the fantasy plot should be pushing against each other in every chapter. Not alternating. Not taking turns. Both present. Both in tension.
The easiest way to think about this is to ask one question for every chapter you write. How does what happens in the plot make the romance harder in this chapter? And how does the state of the romance make the plot harder?
If you can answer both questions, the chapter is doing both jobs. If you can only answer one, the chapter is leaning too far in one direction.
Common Pacing Problems in Romantasy
The romance disappears for several chapters during a high-action plot sequence. When it comes back it feels like a reset. Readers disengage.
The plot disappears during a romantic scene and the world feels like it has been paused. The stakes drop and readers feel the lurch.
The middle of the book becomes all romance with very little plot movement. The initial conflict gets resolved, the couple gets closer, and the reader starts to wonder where the story is going.
The fix for all three is the same. Neither arc is allowed to go on pause. The romance keeps moving during action sequences, even in small ways. The plot keeps applying pressure during romantic scenes. Both arcs are always running, even when one is in the foreground.
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What to Read Before You Write (And Exactly What to Study)
Every guide on romantasy says read the genre. Almost none of them tell you what to actually look for.
Here is a reading list with specific things to study in each book:
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
Study the information management. Pay attention to what Violet knows, what Xaden knows, and when information moves between them. The tension in this book is largely built on the gap between what each character is hiding and what they are revealing. Watch how Yarros controls that flow chapter by chapter.
A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas
Study the relationship reset. ACOTAR ends one relationship and ACOMAF builds an entirely new one. Maas has to make a reader who was invested in Feyre and Tamlin transfer all of that investment to Feyre and Rhysand. Watch how she does it without making Feyre seem inconsistent and without making Tamlin a cartoonish villain.
From Blood and Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Study the slow burn mechanics. This book is the slowest of slow burns and it works because Armentrout never lets the tension drop. Watch how she keeps the reader desperate across a very long book. Count how many times the almost moment is interrupted and how each interruption raises the stakes rather than frustrating the reader.
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
Study the morally gray love interest. Cardan is genuinely cruel for a significant portion of this book. Watch how Black keeps the reader interested in him as a potential love interest despite behavior that should be disqualifying. The answer is in the moments of unexpected depth, not in excusing the behavior.
How Writeo Handles Romantasy
Romantasy is probably the most demanding genre to write from a tracking standpoint.
You are managing a large cast with complicated relationships. You are running two arcs simultaneously. Your world has rules that need to stay consistent. Your romance has shifts that have to be logged as they happen or you will lose them in revision.
Every character gets a full profile with appearance, backstory, personality, and chapter-by-chapter appearance tracking. Writeo comes with pre-built templates you can use straight away or you can build your own. One template for your main characters, a shorter one for supporting characters, a quick one for background characters.
The Character Relationship Visualizer maps every connection in your cast on an interactive graph. For a romantasy with a large court or faction-based cast, you need to see the whole social structure at once. Who is loyal to whom. How allegiances are shifting. Which connections are about to become problems.
When the romance shifts in chapter twelve, you log it through the Evolve Relationship feature. New relationship type. New intensity level. Which chapter. Why. The Relationship Timeline keeps the full history so you can find any moment of the arc in seconds.
Your world notes and magic system rules live inside the same tool as your manuscript. No separate documents. No switching apps. You can also keep your story bible inside the same project so everything stays in one place.
The Thing That Separates the Books That Work
Romantasy is not hard because the genre is complicated.
It is hard because it demands two things at the same time. A fantasy plot with real stakes. A romance with real tension. Both built so that each one makes the other harder.
The books that work are not the ones with the best world building or the best love story. They are the ones where you cannot tell where the world building ends and the love story begins. Where the magic system exists to make the relationship impossible. Where the relationship exists to make the plot personal.
Readers feel that difference on page one. They may not be able to name it. But they know when a book has it and they know when it does not.
Study the books that are working. Not just to enjoy them. To understand the specific decisions the author made. Why this magic system. Why this obstacle. Why this wound for this character. Every choice in a great romantasy is there for a reason.
You will write better once you understand the reasons.
The real question is not whether you can write romantasy. It is whether you are willing to build a world where love is the most dangerous thing in it.